1. Field of the Invention
In general, this particular invention relates to an apparatus for processing a plastic material to impart a highly lustrous and polished surface.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the typical soap manufacturing operation, a bar of milled soap is generally extruded from a nozzle and an apertured forming plate mounted at the end of the nozzle and transverse to the longitudinal axis of the extrusion device or plodder. Thereafter, the extruded soap is appropriately cut into blanks or billets. During the foregoing process, it is customary to have an apparatus for purposes of providing the extruded soap with a generally continuous and smooth outer surface which is free of surface impediments or impairments. The aforedescribed apparatus which finishes the smooth surface is limited in the sense that even though the generally coarser imperfections are removed, it is nonetheless rather dull and unattractive in appearance. The foregoing type of surface is a drawback whenever it is desirable to have soap cakes with a smooth and highly glossy surface. It should be evident, of course, that a smooth and glossy finish materially enhances the commercial success of the particular soap being marketed.
Attempts have heretofore been undertaken with respect to providing soap with such glossy surface. By way of general example, it has been known in the prior art to use manual techniques. Generally speaking, the glossy surface resulted from persons rubbing the soap in their hands. The manual technique suffers from several substantial drawbacks, particularly from the standpoint of mass production of a multiplicity of uniformly, highly polished soap bars.
By way of specific example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,713,188 to Garvey broadly describes a mechanized approach which achieves the formation of a polished surface. This approach likewise has drawbacks insofar as the apparatus employed for polishing the soap is rather complicated in construction and expensive to operate. For instance, the Garvey process requires use of preselected heaters subsequent to extrusion in order to achieve formation of such a surface since the apparatus is unable to satisfactorily polish the soap surface to the desired extent when the soap is not heated above a certain temperature upon extrusion.
From the preceding considerations, it is clear that known prior art techniques in the field of soap manufacture fail to provide an apparatus which serves to simply, reliably, uniformly and economically produce highly polished surfaces on the exterior surface of extruded soap.